Games involving the positioning of playing pieces on patterned game boards are known and popular. Many such games involve aligning, encircling or connecting playing pieces in order to score points or otherwise meet a winning objective. Several of these games involve the positioning of coded playing pieces at correspondingly coded positions on the gam board. However, no game apparatuses have apparently been provided for games that require the player to select from a limited number of options which coded playing piece to position at one of multiple possible coded locations on the game board so as to create chains of connected pieces, expand chains, interconnect chains, protect chains from capture by opponents, or take over the chains of opponents.